Page 81 of The Woman By the Lake

She pressed into him and made her eyes big. “All accounts and all of them. Lincoln, Sarah and Roosevelt.”

“All three of them shared joint accounts?”

She nodded.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered.

“I know,” Nadia replied. “And Lincoln and Roosevelt had set up a trust for their royalties, and this trust had three trustees, Lincoln, Sarah and Roosevelt. But upon one or the other brother’s death, Sarah was the managing trustee. Now, no surprise, there were stipulations, and if something happened to Lincoln, Sarah got it all. She’s his wife, and he would assume she’d use what she inherited to take care of herself, and their kids. But, surprise, if something happened to Roosevelt, again, Sarah got it all. Though, that said, she kinda already had it all, considering she was named as managing trustee in the trust.”

“Right,” Riggs said when she stopped talking.

She started again. “Onward from that, if something happened to Sarah, both Lincoln and Roosevelt got it all. Down the middle, equitable split.”

“I guess, considering they made their money writing those books together, that’s not a surprise,” he noted.

“No. But the trust was adjusted twice since it was formed. Not when the kids were born, but instead, five years before the murders, this in order to umbrella all the possessions, monies, investments, contracts, future earnings and properties of the two brothers. The second was a year and a half before the murders, and this was to release the properties from the trust, because, get this, Lincoln and Roosevelt worked through a title company to have everything, the cabin, this house, the lake, and Sarah and Lincoln’s place in Seattle transferred to Sarah’s name.”

“What the fuck?” he asked.

“Right?” she asked back. “And it gets weirder, because, even after Sarah was dead, for some reason, Lincoln did bupkus to change this trust, though he did take possession of the properties, and everything else, since he inherited them from Sarah. Now, the dissension begins not simply because the managing trustee was dead, the other trustees were dead, and no other trustee was listed, nor inheritor named, and there was a whole lot of dough up for grabs. Not because Lincoln murdered their daughter. But because Sarah’s parents never liked Lincoln or Roosevelt. And I say that, but from what Susan could tell from filings, it was more like hate. They hated the brothers. Didn’t want their daughter to marry Lincoln or have anything to do with either. Since she essentially posthumously inherited everything, they’re not youngsters, they’re both still alive, and they think they should have it all.”

“Not their grandkids?”

“I’m getting to that.”

He grinned at her and shut up.

“Due to their attitude to the Whitaker boys, and Sarah’s, shall we say, connection to both, there was no small amount of estrangement before the incident occurred. It’s reported through the documents, none of the family, including the kids, had seen their maternal grandparents for a good decade. And before that, things were already ugly. So the twins’ parents, also both still alive, don’t think they should have anything. And considering they believe Sarah was the root of both their boys’ downfall, they don’t think Sarah, or her descendants, should have it either.”

Jesus Christ.

“They want to cut out their grandkids too?”

“I know,” she repeated. “Seriously, it’s dysfunction to the highest degree. And that doesn’t take into account Sarah’s sister, Mary, who is also a claimant, who also wants it all, cutting out everyone, her sister’s children, her parents, definitely the in-laws. The whole lot of them. She, too, is estranged from her own parents. But she says she and Sarah were close, and Sarah’s will gave Lincoln and Roosevelt everything, Lincoln actually getting it, because he was the only one left alive. But the sister says, when the two of them were out of the picture, Sarah would want her to have it all.”

“Over her sister’s children,” he remarked, but it was a question.

A quick nod from Nadia and, “That’s what she claims. But this is where it gets even more interesting, Riggs, because, according to quite a bit of evidence they were able to produce, which Susan said is expansive and difficult to refute, particularly the publishing contracts, this being that, although Lincoln and Roosevelt came up with the idea for their flagship series together, and their folks admit that the first three books the brothers wrote as a team, after that, Lincoln essentially tapped out. So there were twenty-nine books published, twenty-one in their flagship series, five in a new series they’d launched, and three standalones. And of those, they contend Roosevelt, and Roosevelt alone, wrote twenty-six of them.”

“So Roosevelt was carrying Lincoln?”

She nodded. “Yes, supporting Lincoln, not to mention providing for his wife, his family and his living large with two properties in two locations, both of which were rather impressive. Because this house is very nice, but he also had waterfront property in Seattle that was worth some big bucks.”

“Jesus,” Riggs muttered.

“This means, if the Whitaker parents can sway a judge, Sarah’s parents, and her sister, at least, have no claim to anything that came from what those twenty-six books produced, which, obviously, is quite a bit of the whole banana.”

The whole banana.

Christ, she was cute.

“Yeah, it is,” he agreed.

“And just to say, several of the parties, namely the Whitakers, noted that the brothers were fighting about the movies. Lincoln wanted to sell more rights. Roosevelt did not. He apparently didn’t like the notoriety it was causing him. And if it’s true that Lincoln didn’t have a hand in writing any of the books after the first three, which were the only rights sold, it could be that Lincoln didn’t have a leg to stand on in pushing his brother to sell more. The elder Whitakers contend things were coming to a head between the brothers, and Roosevelt wasn’t changing the pen name they’d come up with, because by then, it was branded. But Roosevelt had shared with them, if Lincoln didn’t back down, he was going to let it be known his brother was no longer creatively contributing, and the intimation was that things might get financially dicey for Lincoln if his brother cut him off.”

“Motive for murder,” Riggs noted.

“I’ll say, premeditated at that,” she replied. “And I’m not done.”

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